The prices around here range from $17-$27 for a full day of daycare. Most half days are considered to be from 7am-1pm or 1pm-7-pm. I'm not crazy about that half day system. The daycare I'm in now considers a half day to be 6 hours with no set time for pick up. I once saw my supervisor at the previous daycare charge a man for a full day because he dropped his dog off at 12:55(with intent to get a half day). That's a-okay by me but she wouldn't let it go. Boy oh boy, was he pissed! He altered his dog's daycare schedule so that he never had to see her again and talked sh*t about her to the rest of the staff(We didn't like her anyway...). My current daycare is $18 for a full day, $13 for a half day, and it's maybe $5 if you just drop your dog off for a couple hours. That seems very fair to me.
Most places will also charge less than the norm when you're sending more than one dog. For example, one dog is $18 for a full day but two dogs is only $32. I think this just makes it ever so slightly easier to afford daycare for multiple dogs. The wagsworth manor site can give you an idea about charging for multiple dogs.
Let me say that neither of the daycares I have been in have been perfect. They both have plenty of flaws and if I could start my own daycare that lives up to my expectations, believe you me, I would.
I do NOT like to see daycares that are just converted warehouses. Yeah, wild crazy dogs can still enjoy themselves wrestling but how many dogs do you know that want to hang out in a warehouse all day? I would draw up the floor plan of my first daycare for you if I could but I don't know how to do that on this Mac. So I will try to describe the best pieces of the floor plan and the flaws.
1. Double gate the living hell out of the daycare. Even the entrance into the building should be double gated. Accidents happen. Dogs ignore their owners. And there's more dogs out there that can open doors than you might think. Double gate the entrance to each playroom.
2. Have more than one entrance/exit into each playroom. It makes it easier to rotate individual dogs and entire groups. More than one gate makes for less congestion which means fewer fights. My first daycare could rotate a group from playroom one, to the pool, and then into playroom three or four. That made it possible to rotate the small dog group from play room two, into the pool, and back into playroom one without ever crossing the path of the big dogs. Does that makes sense?
3. Do NOT have doggy doors going from indoor to outdoor play areas. I'm a-OK with guillotined kennels for boarders but you ALWAYS need to be able to supervise the daycare dogs. If I am inside, all of my dogs are inside with me. That way I know that nobody is fighting, mounting, eating poop, etc.
4. Have more than one way to access the boarding kennels. If a dog comes down with kennel cough, you don't want other dogs taking the same route to their kennels. We had three kennel rooms so it was possible to quarantine sick dogs in an empty kennel room.
5. If you can't tell already, I absolutely DO want to see areas divided. In both of my daycares, daycare dogs are out all day except for lunch time. The small dogs need to be safe from the big dogs. And there is always a circle of males that HATE each other and a circle of females that HATE each other. When you have 2-3 separate play groups going, it is much easier to keep the peace.
6. Do not use chain link as a barrier between groups. It's like a formal invitation to a fence fight even for dogs that know each other.
I'm sure that there are things I'm forgetting.
The best building material seems to be concrete for the floors. You can paint it to make it look more cheerful(first place was red, second place is blue). The first daycare had a kind of sheet metal lining the walls to about 4' up or so. From there to the ceiling it was brick. The sheet metal+ concrete combo made cleaning SO much easier.
I have always kenneled dogs separately except for "siblings". If owners want siblings kenneled together, they have to sign a waiver.
My current daycare is much smaller than my first one. The first would have anywhere from 60-120 dogs whereas my current has a max of 40. There are pros and cons to big and small daycares.
Big daycares have a greater selection of playmates for your crazy youngsters and the dogs tend to stay busier throughout the day.
What I love about my small daycare is that all of the dogs really know each other. It doesn't have that dog park feel to it. If certain dogs aren't friends, they're at least acquaintances. The dogs often communicate in short hand and skip the tense, drawn out greeting process.
What I don't like about my small daycare:
1. Big dogs and little dogs are all mixed together. There has yet to be a single issue or injury but I still don't like it.
2. I am one of two employees. My boss is in there everyday. If I can't work... well, they're screwed.
3. The layout of the facility less than stellar. We have one big indoor area and one big outdoor area. Having multiple play rooms and outdoor areas keeps the dogs interested in the environment, gives something novel and entertaining. With such a boring layout, the dogs get bored with it and each other and sun bathe. I just think they'd be more tired when they go home with different things to explore.